Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic is once again about brewing. Would you say your brewing methods changed or evolved significantly over the last year, somewhat, or no not really. How have they changed? If you are a newbie, how drastically have your methods changed...or not at all.

I consider myself a 'newbie' to tea even though I started drinking tea 2 years ago. I had quit not long after I started because I burned myself out of chai. I wasn't drinking it with milk or cream and it was just a very strong taste.. I'd drink 15 cups in a day or something high like that.. Now realize that was all bagged chai (Tazo Organic Chai) which I like but now that I've bought and tried a loose leaf masala I love it more! This time I add cream to each chai cup and brew it strongly. Quite yummy I must say.

But I voted not as a newbie but the option that says that my brewing techniques have evolved slowly over time. I used to infuse my bagged chai for 5 full minutes. Now I infuse my loose leaf (all flavored teas right now) at 4 minutes. I don't taste much of the flavor that I can smell on the dry and wet leaf when it's hot. I assume I could taste the vanilla (for example) if it were iced. But either way the tea is tasty.

I'm starting to try to find fruity or sweet tea that isn't flavored. I want higher quality tea to see if I can taste the difference at this early point in my tea-career. I've had some good suggestions from the members who frequently use the instant messenger here on the site. Those recommendations were Dian Hong, Qimen, second flush Darjeeling and Nilgiri tea. I did buy a Nilgiri in this latest order that will arrive tomorrow, so I'm excited to try it.

I voted 'Other' because I'm not sure if it's my methods, me, the tea or something else that changed but stuff has been happening, in leaps and bounds as evolution is prone to. Suddenly I could pick up changes in what I tasted that weren't there before. Mostly regarding teaware i e noticing the difference between two brewing vessels, or the development of one in particular.

sriracha wrote:I voted 'Other' because I'm not sure if it's my methods, me, the tea or something else that changed but stuff has been happening, in leaps and bounds as evolution is prone to. Suddenly I could pick up changes in what I tasted that weren't there before. Mostly regarding teaware i e noticing the difference between two brewing vessels, or the development of one in particular.

Not a lot of change in my brewing over the past year.....some new tricks like a 'hot start' flash rinse for some green teas before starting lower infusion temps and working back up; and more consistently improved results with lower temperature brewing.